Insufficient medicine; S.C. leaders seek to raise awareness of racial disparities

The difference in care quality and medical outcomes between whites and blacks has prompted a number of studies indicating that the main reasons include socioeconomic and environmental factors, barriers to accessing the health care system, lifestyle choices, institutional bias and a history of distrust.

By the time segregation was outlawed by the U.S. Congress through passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, life expectancy among blacks born in 1960 was 63.6, seven years less than whites, and infant mortality rates were double those of whites. (In 1965, the Medicare bill was passed by Congress.)

It didn't help matters that the American Medical Association, the country's most important and influential medical trade group, whose mission was to protect the interests of doctors and patients, had been complicit in denying membership to black doctors and had systematically refused to assist blacks when they asked for help. The organization amended its constitution and bylaws in 1968. But the impact of AMA policy, acknowledged by the group when it issued an apology on July 10, has been profound. The policy affected state medical associations, exacerbated disparities and delayed the health industry's ability to address the problem effectively, according to Dr. Thaddeus Bell, a Charleston physician and vocal advocate for black health.

The AMA's 1847 Code of Medical Ethics included a statement requiring physicians to use "zealous and methodical efforts for the relief of the suffering and unfortunate, irrespective of rank or fortune, or of fortuitous elevation of any kind." Yet, by the group's own admission, "the AMA failed to take action against AMA-affiliated state and local medical associations that openly practiced racial exclusion in their memberships — practices that functionally excluded most African American physicians from membership in the AMA."

And without membership in these associations, doctors were regularly denied hospital privileges and access to patients.

Read more in Sunday's Post and Courier.